Clegg: 'Coalition contract broken'

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today accused the Tories of breaking the coalition agreement by not proceeding with House of Lords reform and said his party would be withdrawing support for constituency boundary changes in return.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today accused the Tories of breaking the coalition agreement by not proceeding with House of Lords reform and said his party would be withdrawing support for constituency boundary changes in return.

He said: "The Conservative Party is not honouring its commitment to Lords reform and as a result part of our contract has now been broken.

"Clearly I cannot permit a situation where Conservative rebels can pick and chose the parts of the contracts they like while Liberal Democrat MPs are bound by the entire agreement.Coalition works on mutual respect, it's a two-way street.

"So I have told the Prime Minister that when the Parliament votes on boundary changes for the 2015 election, Liberal Democrats in Parliament will oppose them."

Nick Clegg said in a press conference today: "I can confirm today that we do not intend to proceed with the Bill in this Parliament.

Nick Clegg

"To modernisers and campaigners let me say this, I am disappointed as you that we have delivered an elected lords this time round. But Lords reform has always been a case of two steps forward and one step back."

"I support an elected House of Lords because I believe those that make the laws of the land should be elected by those who have to obey the laws of the land. That's democracy.

"I knew that creating a democratic lords would not be straightforward. This cause has long been blocked by an establishment resistant to change and by the vested interests who benefit from maintaining the power of political patronage."

Failure to deliver on the most important aspects of constitutional reform would, of course, be a bitter blow to Liberal Democrats.

But the party will also recognise that the constitutional package within the coalition agreement was not the most important aspect of it to the voters, nor was it nearly as important as the state of the economy as a reason for the decision to provide the country with a stable government.